Sorry
by Bebbe5
Summary: Professor Lowell reflects over the row he's had with Doctor Holmes after the discover of Phineas Jennison's body. It's a songfiction about the novel "The Dante Club" by Matthew Pearl, based on the lyrics of "Sorry" by Chris Daughtry.


N/A: I was very surprised when I found that, in this website, there werenﾒt stories about The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. So, I decided to translate this shot of mine.

Hope you like it

Summary: Lowell reflects over his raw argument with Doctor Holmes just before going to Charles Street to apologize.

SORRY

James Russell Lowell was walking down Bostonﾒs streets which, adorned by the snow, were glistening under the rays of the dying sun.

How lonely those places seemed to him, now that Phineas Jennison had ceased to exist, killed in one of the most brutal ways human mind could conceive.

Why then the killer had chosen him?

Amongst his many defects there could be haughtiness, pomposity, arrogance, but he certainly wasnﾒt a schismatic.

Good Heaven, it didnﾒt make sense that he had been cut to pieces in such a cruel way!

He knew Phineas, he had been one of his best friends, the shoulder to weep over the oppressions suffered because of the Harvard Corporation, the voice he could laugh and joke with in happy moments. More than once, he had thought to see him walking down the streets, in his gaudy white coat. On one occasion he had also run after the apparition and, when he had tried to grab the arm of the fellow, he had found skin and bones under his fingers.

The tears of joy, though, had soon freezer on his face and not just due to the harsh climate of Boston: the man he had had in front of himself was none other than the tramp who had found the body of his friend. He had purloined the clothes he was wearing from the crime scene.

After that episode he had underwent a terrible period. He had received attacks from any side: from the Harvard Corporation personified by Augustus Manning, the from doctor Agassiz and finally from that filthy maggot of Simon Camp. He had caught a glimpse of hope when, some days before, Fields had come to tell him that the police had captured Lucifer.

Too bad it was a poor ignorant without the slightest knowledge of Dante or, anyway, Italian. Another hole in the water.

When had everything started to go wrong?

ﾑSince the evening of the discover of Phineasﾒ s bodyﾒ he answered to himself. Right, because, in that damn day, he hadnﾒt lost just one friend, but even two.

He still remembered the awful row that had occurred between him and Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes in the Ticknor & Fields book trade. They had hurled insults at each other and the mere recollection of it made his blood boil.

He was convinced that he was on the right side: he had defended Longfellow, he had defended Dante like Lancelot would have defended Arthur and the Holy Grail.

Why then in his heart he had the sensation that he had done something wrong?

Suddenly his eyes spotted the outline of Doctor Holmesﾒs house which stood out in the distance.

He stopped where he was and observed it.

A sudden thought crossed his mind: _they had both been mistaken._

Holmes had drawn back right when they had found themselves in the middle of the entire issue. He had abandoned them. It was true, though, that, between the four of them, the little asthmatic doctor was the one who had lived more the entire vicissitude.

_ﾓ__I__ﾒ__d exchange what I__ﾒ__ve seen with ten thousand flies of the flesh.__ﾔ __*_

The recollection of those words stirred his lips in a bitter smile. He couldnﾒt blame his friend. He had had to lower himself in the hole which had hosted the agonizing body of Reverend Talbot, looking for clues; he had witnessed the last spasms of life of the mutilated body of Phineas Jennisonﾅ it would have been too much for anyone, even for a medicine teacher of Harvard University as Holmes was.

As for him, as usual, he had behaved on impulse. He hadnﾒt wanted to see beyond the idea of Holmes everybody had, or else, of a coward man, good only with words, but incapable of acting when it was necessary to do it. He had heavily insulted him without understanding that his friend wasnﾒt abandoning them, but was just trying to say _ﾓ__I need a breath of fresh air, I need to try to forget the horrors I__ﾒ__ve witnessed, while I wait for the next move.__ﾔ _

In a moment, he made his decision and headed towards 21 Charles Street with a quick step.

While he was walking, though, some doubts invaded his mind.

Will you listen to my story?  
Itﾒll just be a minute  
How can I explain?  
Whatever happened here never meant to hurt you  
How can I cause you so much pain?

Would Holmes have listened to him? Or would he have reacted by giving him tit for tat, or else by throwing him out of his house without even listening to him? Heﾒd have to be fast, heﾒd have to explain him in a few words that it hadnﾒt been his intention to hurt him that way, that his words had been dictated by anger.

God, how could he have reached that point?

How could he have treated like that one of his best friends?

When I say Iﾒm sorry  
Will you believe me?  
Listen to my story  
Say you wonﾒt leave me  
When I say Iﾒm sorry  
Can you forgive me?  
When I say I will always be there  
Will you believe, will you believe in me?

He asked himself if Holmes would have believed him when he had said he was sorry, if he would have accepted to forgive him.

He wondered if he would still have wanted to be his friend and he found himself hoping fervently in a positive answer. With all the defects he could have, Holmes was anyway a good person and a great connoisseur of various science and culture fields. When he had left the Fieldsﾒ book trade, all of them, even if they hadnﾒt confessed it, they had felt like a hole had opened itself in their hearts.

He would have missed him particularly: it was funny to poke him, to biker with him under the amused looks of Longfellow and Fields.

He would have missed him as a friend, he decided to admit.

All the words that I come up with  
Theyﾒre like gasoline on flames  
Thereﾒs no excuse, no explanation  
Believe me if I could undo what I did wrong  
Iﾒd give away all that I own

He stiffened when he remembered to have told his friend that it would have been better if they had his son in the Dante Club. That he would have been more helpful.

That had been a very low blow and he felt ashamed of himself for having been the author of it. He didnﾒt really think what he had said and mentally cursed his bad temper. He liked the company of the young Holmes, of that boy who persisted on always trying so different from his father, though admiring and thinking highly of him, even if secretly.

Nevertheless, he wouldﾒve never ever replaced Doctor Holmes with his son. He felt even guiltier when he realized that, maybe, if he had assumed a more understanding attitude, they wouldﾒve never started to offend each other that way and Holmes wouldnﾒt have left so hastily.

Damn impulsiveness!

The fall of his friend, after he had bumped into Teal, one of the employees of Fields, came back to his mind.

Even then he hadnﾒt reached to help him, despite it was clear that he was a prey of one of his terrible asthma attacks.

He had kept on insulting him, he had accused him of treason and had turned his back to him.

He sighed.

If he had possessed the ability of going back in time, he certainly wouldnﾒt have said those things. Or, at least, he wouldﾒve tried to restrain himself from doing it.

He couldnﾒt change the events. They were like that and he had to try to remedy to them at any cost.

Take me for who I am  
And not for who Iﾒve been, who Iﾒve been

By then he had reached Holmesﾒ house. He took a deep breath, crossed the entrance gate and headed towards the door. He didnﾒt remember to have ever done such a short and, in the meantime, long path.

In the end, anyway, he found himself at the front door.

He knocked and, after a few minutes, a maid came to open the door for him. She instantly recognized him and let him come in the hall before going to call her masters.

As he waited, Lowell found himself immersed again in his thoughts. Nevertheless he didnﾒt start to ponder over what he would have said.

He had started to hope, almost desperately, even if it was unfair to do it so, that his friend wouldnﾒt make his mistake, that he wouldnﾒt judge him on the base of an only single episode.

He hoped so with all himself and kept on doing it even when Amelia Holmes came to receive him and led him to the study room where, once inside, he found himself face to face with Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes.

THE END

*Unfortunately, I donﾒt have the English version of this great novel, so the ﾓquoteﾔ is in fact a translation I made from Italian.


End file.
